Parents File Action Against Sacramento Hospital For Emotional Distress Due To Child’s Birth Injury, Part 4 of 7

The following blog entry is written from a defendant’s position as trial approaches. Reviewing this kind of briefing should help potential plaintiffs and clients better understand how parties in personal injury cases present such issues to the court.

It is worth noting that situations similar to those described in this medical malpractice case could just as easily occur at any of the healthcare facilities in the area, such as Kaiser Permanente, U.C. Davis Medical Center, Mercy, Sutter, or any skilled nursing facility.

(Please also note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this birth injury case and its proceedings.)

The Court in Bird cited approvingly (at 921) the case of Golstein v. Superior Court (1990) 223 Cal. App.3d 1145, in which the plaintiffs were the surviving parents of a nine-year-old boy who died as the result of the negligent administration of an overdose of radiation while undergoing treatment for curable cancer.

Although they were present and witnessed the results of the negligent over-radiation, and although they observed the deteriorating and worsening condition of their son on a daily basis as well as his pain and suffering up to the time of death, the court of appeal held that the plaintiffs could not recover on a bystander theory because the plaintiffs did not experience a contemporaneous sensory awareness of the causal connection between the negligent conduct and the resulting injury. Id. at 1427. For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.

The court in Golstein explained why the mother in Mobaldi did not have a cause of action for NIED: The actual negligent act was not simply the injection itself, but the use of the wrong solution, an act which plaintiff, as a medical layperson, could not meaningfully perceive; what appeared to her as an innocent-seeming injection was actually the conduit of medical negligence and the cause of her child’s injuries. Golstein at 1423. (See Part 5 of 7.)